Global Migrants, Three Nations, and Unwanted Neighbors: Somali Bantu Mainers

This research project focuses primarily on the Bantu Somali refugee/immigrant community in Lewiston, Maine. The 4,500 Bantu Somali population that makes up 10% of Lewiston, began to arrive in 2001 after spending twenty years in refugee camps in Kenya. This community presents an opportunity to discuss "new immigrant" histories of the twenty-first century. Unwilling migrants by virtue of their status as refugees fleeing terror and violence, Somali Bantu were placed in media narratives of crisis. Yet, their historical narratives as migrants and immigrants are also important and compelling. Bantu Somalis were for the last 600 years part of a social caste in Somalia and then became refugees first in Kenya and then the US. Ethnic Somali's have long discriminated against Bantu Somalis. This relationship took on new forms as both communities were resettled in Lewiston, Maine as a result of continued political unrest and Civil War in Somalia. Though not officially of a caste in the US, the Bantu Somalis were less educated upon arrival and have come to be viewed by natives of Lewiston as taking over jobs in factories and lower end wage positions. Slowly Bantu Somalis have become increasingly educated and as the first generation of US born Bantu Somalis begins to enter college the relationship is being reformed to some extent. Through UNHCR documents and oral interviews, I examine the history of this shifting relationship and the shifting identities of Bantu Somali across three national landscapes. There are 3 distinctive generations to examine: Those born in Somalia, those born in Kenyan and Ethiopian Refugee camps, and those born in Lewiston, Maine.